Fatal

I had a strange flashback the other day. Years ago (8, 9?) I was in Budapest with my then wife. We were having dinner in a restaurant called Fatal. I would have gone there anyway just for the name, but it was good in a couple of other ways too. The food was good, and big. Huge serves of very stodgy middle-european food with lots of pork and cabbage and sour cream (my wife wasn't overly impressed, but I loved it). There was an agreeable touch of what my friend Ivan and I (who seek out this sort of thing) would call 'bizarricality' about it. But it got stranger. On the table next to us was a group of well-dressed people in their 40s. Having a good time, enjoying the food and a night out. One of the party, a fairly attractive and otherwise-respectable middle-aged woman was doing something which I caught out of the corner of my eye and registered as being a bit odd even before I saw what she was doing.

She was leaning forward, her face just above a serving bowl. And she was vomiting. Not in a big make-a-fuss way, but in a very controlled and decorous way. And noone else at her table seemed to think anything much of it.

I loved Budapest.